In today's world belonging to a sexual minority population
often means experiencing invisibility, marginalization, and discrimination,
making day-to-day life challenging. Imagine taking on twice that burden, as is
what happens when people enter into same-sex relationships – your
partner's stresses often become your own, too.

In partnership with the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory
University in Atlanta, San Francisco State University's Health Equity Institute
is spearheading Project SHARe: Stress, Health and Relationships, a National
Institutes of Health-funded study to better understand how same-sex couples experience
social stress together.

SFSU sociology Professor Allen LeBlanc, 49, the study's principal
investigator, explained that traditionally, scientific research has focused on
how individuals are affected by stress. This study is starting at the unit of
the couple, specifically same-sex couples, not only to study how they
experience stress together, but to determine how being part of a sexual
minority group can amplify that stress.

"All couples worry about things like money, sex, kids,"
LeBlanc, who is gay, said. "Those are normal stressors. Minority stressors
are rooted in the unique experience of being in a disadvantaged population
– social stigma, rejection from society, experiencing everyday
discrimination and prejudice in the forms of one-on-one interactions and
institutional barriers."

People also experience sexual minority stress in the form of
internalized homophobia, he explained, where rejection from society is
internalized and leads to hiding sexual orientation and subsequently intimate
relationships, too.

Also important, LeBlanc emphasized, is addressing the
experiences of various minority populations that exist within the broader
sexual minority population.

"This study is designed to have a racially, ethnically,
socioeconomically diverse population," he said. "There's a growing
awareness in the minority stress research field that you have to think about
multiple minority stressors simultaneously and that's why we're reaching toward
diversity."

While SFSU is the home institution for the project, Atlanta's
Emory University will also be identifying couples in keeping with the guideline
of diversity.

"Both Atlanta and San Francisco have large gay and
lesbian populations but they're fairly different in their sociodemographic
populations," LeBlanc said.

During the first year of the five-year study, Project SHARe's
goal is to interview 60 same-sex female couples and 60 same-sex male couples
recruited from all over the Bay Area.

Five months into the project, the study's team is currently
looking for more participants. Couples must have spent a minimum of six months
together to enroll. The one-time interview consists of up to two hours of
self-guided relationship reflection which, LeBlanc said, has been really
enjoyable for couples.

"They really determine the focus of the
interview," he said. "We ask them what's been significant in their
relationship and we have exercises to facilitate that conversation."

Kelly Whitney, 43, and Trisha Pulido, 35, a same-sex couple
from Concord that has been together for seven years, enjoyed their interview.

"We were there for three and a half hours,"
Whitney said, "because we just kept talking. It was so much fun."

As a small incentive, each partner is given $30 for
participating. After the first year of interviews, Project SHARe's team hopes
to use the social networks of those 120 couples to identify additional couples
for the study's next phase.

The first of its kind, Project SHARe exists as a starting
point not only for understanding how stress is shared in same-sex relationships
(and other types of relationships, too), but also for developing better social
services that take into account the complex experiences that accompany
belonging to a sexual minority population.

"It points to the places where we can intervene,"
LeBlanc said, "where social services and clinical providers can identify
where people are most vulnerable to stress and where they need the most
support.

"It's also a means of educating the general
public," he continued, "about the challenges placed on people's lives
by virtue of being in a minority group. Stressors like blocked access to
marriage could actually be something that becomes a public health issue."

While still relatively new, the study is having a positive
impact on the morale of some participants. Feeling excited, recognized, and
validated are a few sentiments couples have relayed.

"It's different for same-sex couples because the only
support we get is from each other," Whitney said. "It's nice to get
acknowledgement beyond our community."

LeBlanc and his colleagues also hope that this study will
lead to future studies that include transgender people.